Why Usha Vance’s damage control campaign is so 'depressing to watch': analysis

07 August 2024

Donald Trump's presidential running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), has been in damage-control mode in response to all the criticism he has been bombarded with because of his "childless cat ladies" and "childless Democrats" attacks of 2021 and 2022.

Although those comments received some biting criticism in liberal and progressive websites at the time, they became a much bigger controversy after Trump chose Vance as his running mate. The "Hillbilly Elegy" author has deeply offended not only women who decided against having children, but also, everyone from couples struggling with fertility to adoptive parents.

Two of the Democrats Vance attacked for being "childless" were Vice President Kamala Harris and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. But neither one of them is "childless": Harris has two stepchildren via her marriage to Doug Emhoff, while Buttigieg and his husband adopted two children.

The Trump campaign has been using Vance's wife, San Diego-born attorney Usha Vance in their damage-control efforts. In an op-ed published by the Daily Beast on August 6, journalist Jill Filipovic argues that these efforts don't make Sen. Vance's views any less appalling — and are degrading to his wife.

"The whole performance is carefully calibrated to send the message that if she loves, accepts, and forgives her man — and of course she does! — then so too should the public," Filipovic argues. "In this case, though, the comments are repulsively misogynistic and awfully hard to hand-wave away. They include Usha's husband, J.D. Vance, complaining that the U.S., and the Democratic establishment in particular, is run by 'a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.'"

Filipovic continues, "These 'childless sociopaths,' he said, have made the country 'less mentally stable'; he has also argued that parents should get an extra vote for each child they have. Voters are understandably angry…. So Usha has been brought out to give the whole scandal a gauzier glow."

Usha Vance, Filipovic laments, is being sent on Fox News and other right-wing media outlets to defend the indefensible — which is "so depressing to watch."

"Usha Vance is, without question, a woman who has followed her own path, pursuing excellence in part by a choice to delay having children until she was ready," Filipovic writes. "She has been rewarded — not disparaged — for her achievements. It is depressing to watch a woman who owes her success in large part to the feminists, progressives and yes, the 'childless cat ladies' who made professional success not just possible but aspirational, use all she has built in the service of a man who will use make it all the harder for any other woman."

Marcotte adds, "One upside to the Vance event: There was no line to use the ladies' room."

Jill Filipovic's full Daily Beast op-ed is available at this link (subscription required).

From Your Site Articles